The objective of this study is to evaluate the performance of hospital inpatient ward spatial configuration in relation to visibility. Visibility is an important aspect in a hospital inpatient ward, and could support healthcare performance. Visibility is required in an inpatient ward for the purposes of control, surveillance, interaction and communication among patients and nurses, and it could be affected by the spatial configuration of the ward. Based on isovist as a way to visualize the visual experience in surrounding environments, we developed an analytical tool to evaluate the visibility of an inpatient ward in a planned university teaching hospital. The findings illustrate the visibility as experienced by the users in the everyday operation of the hospital ward. Some recommendations for improvement were suggested to the existing spatial configuration for better visibility.

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Traditional building materials play an important role in the construction of sustainable built environment. Clay bricks as traditional materials have been made with traditional techniques handed down across generation in many countries. The traditional process has become an integral part of the social and cultural life of the local society which forms the ecological relations between architecture and its context.

This study aims to show the application of visibility analysis in hospital outpatient areas to improve wayfinding performance. Visibility is regarded as an essential aspect in wayfinding sign design and affected by the spatial configuration of the environment where the signs are located. The complexity of hospital environment prevents the designers to predict its visibility properties and also creates difficulties in determining the requirement for the sign system such as the location, direction, and size of signs. Based on isovist, visibility graph and visual catchment area (VCA) concept introduced from the past studies, we developed analytical and visualisation tools to aid the wayfinding design processes. The results suggest that the use of visibility analysis in wayfinding sign design can provide valuable insight into the preliminary analysis before the design process, as well as enable design optimisation in the development stages.

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